now if you bring on the romney/ryan plan, the landscape is just the same. they have the same increase. they also want to reduce it by about 10%, but they want to rely on the private sector, not government, to get that done. in a word, they're going for vouchers. they don't like calling it vouchers but that's really what it is. right now if you're on medicare what happens is that the government pays medicare. medicare pays the hospital. the hospital takes care of you. under this plan, the government would pay you and you would decide if you wanted to buy into medicare or into private insurance that will create competition between the two and their theory and that is how you get at that very same waste that the white house wants to get out. these are two very complicated, huge programs. there are critics on both sides who say this plan won't work or that plan won't work or this plan will leave people strand or that plan will leave people stranded. the truth is, it is complicated. it's hard to deal with all of that. if we go to this basic claim that both sides